22Jan10 No More Social Networks…

I’ve been into consolidating my life recently and I have found that Social Networks are not helping.  I find that despite the propaganda to the contrary, Social networks decentralize me since they don’t share any common repository of information.   What I mean is; I have a Facebook profile, that can automatically post my recent Diggs, which I can tweet about.  Even though it appears to be connected, these attempts at centralizing a inherently decentralized setup has only giving me too many places to spread myself and police content about myself.

Granted the nature of my profession requires that I have a strong on-line presences so I am keeping a few core on-line accounts with sites like Linkedin and Elance.  I have benefited from those two sites in a measurable way and therefore, since they are a positive influence, I see no reason to delete them.

Anyways I got this idea from an episode from CBC Spark and it seemed a good way to trim off some excess Web2.0 Fat. 

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22Jan10 Video: Pixel Art Making of House

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19Jan10 Microsoft To Emergency Patch IE As The Web Gathers With Pitchforks Around IE6
When Microsoft updates its software, it typically likes to do so in bulk, which it often calls “Patch Tuesday.” But amid growing controversy around the vulnerability of its Internet Explorer web browser, and particularly IE6, Microsoft has decided to go “out of band” and release the update as a stand-alone fix, which it will do ASAP, it notes today. While not specifically stated in the post, this move seems to be a direct response to word that IE6 was to blame for the large-scale Chinese attacks on a number of large web companies recently. As you have no doubt heard, this included Google, which prompted them to say they would stop censoring search results in China, and could be kicked out of the country as a result. Microsoft has denied that it was targeted in this hacking, but has admitted a vulnerability in IE was at least partially to blame. According to Microsoft, attacks aimed at the browser are still ongoing. In noting this security upgrade, Microsoft also says that it is recommending that all its customers upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, the latest version of the browser which has better security in place. Of course, Microsoft’s own investigation has found that IE8 is vulnerable as well. It’s a nightmare. Following the attacks, even adamant Microsoft supporters are joining a chorus that has existed for years: that Microsoft should kill off IE6. Unfortunately, there are a number of companies that still have to use the browser because they have systems in place built specifically to run with it. That, of course, is also Microsoft’s own fault since they decided for years to use their own proprietary web code when everyone else started to rally around web standards. While the company has been getting better at that, IE remains the browser that is by far the worst when it comes to compatibility with web standards. And Microsoft is still only now making efforts to play nicer with the W3C, the body that oversees web standards. And that’s only because IE continues to bleed market share. Here’s the key nugget from Microsoft’s statement today:
Given the significant level of attention this issue has generated, confusion about what customers can do to protect themselves and the escalating threat environment Microsoft will release a security update out-of-band for this vulnerability. We take the decision to go out-of-band very seriously given the impact to customers, but we believe releasing an update out-of-band update is the right decision at this time.  We will provide the specific timing of the release tomorrow.
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15Jan10 Recycle Your Old Phones and Help Haiti Quake Victims

phones-for-haiti
Like me, you've probably been watching the coverage of the earthquake in Haiti with a big knot in your stomach and maybe you've already donated $10 by texting HAITI to 90999, but if you want to do more (and help out the environment while you're at it), there's an easy way to do so.

ReCellular has launched a disaster relief program for the victims of the earthquake called "Phones for Haiti." All proceeds from donated phones will go straight to the American Red Cross for their work in the country.

If you're like most people you have an old cell phone lying around somewhere and this is a great way to donate to those in need and keep your electronic waste out of a landfill at the same time.  ReCellular refurbishes the donated phones and then sells them to people in developing countries.  Some phone models like Blackberries or iPhones could contribute up to $100 to the Red Cross.

ReCellular also accepts your old chargers, batteries and other accessories and the shipping is free.  Click here to get started.

via Inhabitat

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15Jan10 Upgrade to BlackBerry Messenger 5.0 Today!

BlackBerry Messenger

My name is Theban and I’m the Product Manager for BlackBerry® Messenger. So it’s not too surprising that I’m a BlackBerry Messenger addict. I share this post with all others that suffer the same fate. To me, BlackBerry Messenger is about staying close to the people that matter most.

Maybe it’s hard to explain, unless you get into it. I’ve slowly started converting my family (immediate and extended) into BlackBerry Messenger users and I’m already noticing pretty major changes – we chat more often, I know what’s going on in their lives and interestingly we seem to meet up more often too. And it’s ever so amusing to see the few naysayers slowly switching over because they feel out of the loop and left out.

With the recently released BlackBerry Messenger v5.0, there are now even more reasons to connect with friends and family (not sure if you have BlackBerry Messenger 5.0? Read this article to identify which version of BlackBerry Messenger you are currently running).

  • Reason #5 File Transfer – Share pictures, videos, voice notes and more with multiple contacts at once. Plus, you can do it quickly!
  • Reason #4 Contact Status Updates – Now you can see what your friends are listening to by viewing their song titles…who knew they were such an ABBA fan??
  • Reason #3 Group Creation – By creating groups of friends, family, or colleagues not only do you stay organized but you can also instantly share calendars, lists, conversations, and updates. …never forget the milk again!
  • Reason #2 SMS Messages – Now, you can send text messages from within BlackBerry Messenger so you don’t have to switch back and forth between applications. Plus, you can keep your text messaging and BBM contacts all together in BlackBerry Messenger.
  • …and now, the #1 reason to upgrade BlackBerry Messenger: Barcode invitations – Surely the next new fad in the Instant Messaging world and of course, my next tattoo! Easily add a contact by simply scanning their BlackBerry Messenger barcode with your BlackBerry smartphone camera (a barcode is a 2 dimensional image that is unique to each BlackBerry Messenger user.). Want to know more about BlackBerry Messenger barcodes? Watch for an article in the next BlackBerry Newsletter.

BlackBerry Messenger is free at BlackBerry App World™ or from your BlackBerry smartphone go to www.blackberry.com/blackberrymessenger and follow the on-screen instructions.

So what’s your favorite BlackBerry Messenger feature? Post a comment and let us know!

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30Oct09 Never mind the language, the programmer is what matters

Another piece of old research. It’s so interesting, though, I can’t help putting a note up about it. In a piece of research released in 2000, Lutz Prechelt compared C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl.  (It’s gotten a fair bit of attention before, so it’s not new material)

What’s so good is the fairly rigorous and natural approach – instead of leaning exclusively on local students or one company’s employees performing some unnatural task, the researchers solicited for solutions online for the scripting languages (Perl, Python, Rexx and Tcl) and got 80 different implementations of a simple dictionary task. With these tasks they ran a lot of metrics and generated solid, comparable empirical data. Read it for the details (there is also a prettified version available).

I liked this observation, however:

For all program aspects investigated, the performance variability due to different programmers (as described by the bad/good ratios) is on average about as large or even larger than the variability due to different languages.

It’s quite profound – and even if the study itself is a bit dated and has some minor flaws – this observation probably still holds regardless!

Also, for Perl programmers, this statistic is quite neat:

perl-graph-speed

The variability in execution speed for Perl programs were far lower than for the other languages except Tcl. It might be over-interpreting, but it indicates Perl is a bit more predictable – or Perl programmers are – than most of the other languages. Also, speed-wise is holding up quite good, and even the higher end of the range of execution speed is better than the higher end for all other languages.

The curious thing is that this indicates that the variability between programmers matters less with Perl (and Tcl) than the other languages. Or at least speed-wise, but the low variability also seems to be a tendency in the other metrics in the paper.

What’s so interesting, though, is how this demonstrates in hard numbers the importance of human variables in programming. It’s almost like framework matters less than the people using it.. funny, eh?

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